Apidura’s latest in bikepacking isn’t a product, but just an interactive sizing tool for their frame packs that helps you pick the perfect size bag for any bike. While choosing a saddlepack or bar bag ultimately comes down to how much gear you need to haul, full & half frame packs are limited by the unique geometry of each bike. This simple tool makes it easy to visualize and get the most volume & most efficient storage for your actual bike…
Apidura Frame Pack Interactive Sizing Tool
The limiting factor here of course is just that this Apidura Interactive Sizing Tool only works with their own frame packs… how great it would be if you could plug in packs from many bagmakers on the market?! But it’s still a great tool to quickly get a sense of how much storage you can fit inside your frame.
And if you are looking to buy an Apidura frame pack, this takes the guesswork out and makes sure you pick the best fit possible.
How does it work?
It’s simple and the same whether you want to do it on your phone or computer. Snap a clean driveside cellphone pic of your bike, making sure to have the camera lens centered in the middle of the two wheels and around the middle of the frame – from the bottom of the tires to the top of the saddle – otherwise, lens distortion will make your results less reliable.
Hint: Snap the photo from farther away from the bike and zoom in a bit for the best results.
Upload the photo in Apidura’s Interactive Sizing Tool and you simply scale the photo to align a yellow circle with the edge between your tire & rim. Then, you can virtually try-on all of Apidura’s partial and full frame packs from their Expedition, Backcountry & Racing lines and the different size of each.
It’s a much easier way to test the fit than Apidura’s old print-out templates (which admittedly were helpful), making it much easier to quickly scroll through all of their frame bags to pick which is the neatest fit for your bike. And especially to pick between different sizes.
And then, if you fund the perfect frame bag for your bike, Apidura makes it easy to buy it directly out of the sizing tool.
What’s next?
For now, the Apidura Interactive Sizing Tool is limited to their frame packs (of which there are 15 possibilities), but their goal is to keep building out the tool to include all of their other bags so you can virtually attach a complete bikepacking setup to your bike. That could be helpful to verify that all the other bags would actually fit (think tire & lighting clearance), but also would give a comprehensive idea of how much adventure storage can be fit on your bike.
Add that together with Apidura’s real-racer Kit Grids and you can even get a better sense of how much real gear you would fit in your bikepacking setup – to prep for similar adventures as experienced riders.
Look, admittedly this is a way to sell more Apidura bags. But the tool is fun to play with, and it’s free. And combined with their Kit Grids and other setup guides & How-To resources on their website, Apidura offers a lot of great info to help plan your next adventure or take your bikepacking to the next level.
